Phil Robertson has created a moment of historic opportunity for evangelicals and social conservatives to reverse our cultural slide into sexual deviancy and begin turning our ship of state back toward sexual normalcy.

The only question that remains: will evangelicals and other like-minded Americans seize the moment? Will we capture the energy Phil Robertson has generated and draw on that energy to confront the entrenched fortresses of error and sexual abnormality that right now dominate our social landscape?

The naked bigotry, intolerance and bullying demonstrated by Big Gay in this setting has been revealing. By which I mean, homosexual activists have been exposed for the mean, vicious schoolyard bullies they are.

Even uber-pro-sodomy advocate Dan Savage has realized this. On Anderson Cooper's program this week, he criticized Phil more for his perceived racism than for his comments on homosexuality. Why? He knows, as Ann Coulter told Steve Malzberg, "this is not good for the gays."

The backlash against the bullies of Big Gay has been overwhelming. Americans who still possess a moral compass have besieged A&E's Facebook page, website, and caller lines to express their support for Phil and their outrage that A&E would cravenly capitulate to the Gaystapo by firing a guy who only expressed the unvarnished truth about homosexuality, marriage and salvation, opinions shared by the majority of Americans.

The Robertson family has said, "We cannot imagine the show going forward without our patriarch at the helm." That means one thing: A&E is toast. And Phil Robertson is not. Big Gay took aim at Phil Robertson and took out A&E instead.

The intensely negative response to what A&E has done means this is a potential turning point in American cultural history. It may be that Phil's remarks and his treatment at the hands of the deviancy cabal has finally brought social conservatives to the point where they have just about had it with being pushed around, insulted, demeaned, and deprived of their basic American rights to freedom of religion and speech.

They know it's time to throw caution to the wind and believe with Solzhenitsyn that "one word of truth outweighs the whole world." It's time to refuse to accept the premise that the truth is hate speech, and to recognize the reality that the truth is only hate speech to those who hate the truth. It's time, in other words, to speak up.

As Shakespeare once said, "There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune...And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures."

His point: we must seize the day, for if we do not, if that energy is not harnessed, sustained, and directed at ruling deceptions and entrenched evil, it will dissipate and be wasted and our cultural wasteland will remain a cultural wasteland.

To repeat, what is most significant about this episode is the way in which it has galvanized ordinary Americans who have had it with being told to sit down and shut up. In Phil, they have found a true American hero, someone who finally had the courage to tell it like it is. Inspired by his example, they know the time has come to vocally defend the moral values that have made the United States the freest, strongest and most prosperous nation in the history of civilization.

This prospect sends shivers down the spines of every clear thinking gay activist across the fruited plain. The last thing they want to see is 100 million Phil Robertsons speaking the truth about the unnaturalness of homosexual behavior.

That's why they are trying to shut him up and shut him down. They wouldn't unless he represented a clear and present danger to their entire agenda of remaking America's moral character into their own dark and twisted image.

They can't shut him down if they can't shut us down. It's time for Christian men to stop being wimps, and start telling the truth about human sexuality without apology.

In Roman days, slaves protected one of their own by identifying openly with him. It's time for Christian men all across America to stand to their feet and say with one voice, "I am Phil Robertson."

(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)

Bryan Fischer

Bryan Fischer is the host of the daily 'Focal Point' radio talk program on AFR Talk, a division of the American Family Association. 'Focal Point' airs live from 1-3 pm Central Time, and is also simulcast on the AFA Channel, which can be seen on the Sky Angel network.